Rachel Caine: Terminated

It was labeled that way, with a simple black nameplate, and a write-on/wipe-off board below that. Bryn wrote her name on the board and opened the door. She was expecting the basics—a plain bed, maybe a desk, a simple shower. But the room was lushly carpeted, with a broad king-sized bed, nightstand, work desk, art . . . and a modern full-sized bath. Suddenly, Bryn craved every single bit of that with an intensity that made her shake.

She looked wordlessly at Patrick, and he read it in her. He leaned in and kissed her gently. “Go catch a shower and rest,” he said. “We can talk later.”

What he wasn’t saying was that they needed to talk later, but she understood. It didn’t matter just now. She was far too sore, too exhausted, too dirty to care, and she closed and thumb-locked the door, stripped off her bloody clothes down to the skin, and was in the shower and shampooing her hair before she remembered she hadn’t thought to go to the wardrobe room. Damn.

That, she decided, was a problem she’d face later. Half an hour of hot water later, she toweled her hair dry and crawled naked between the sheets, and was asleep within seconds of hitting the dimmer switch by the bed.

She probably could have slept the clock round, but six hours later, a doorbell she didn’t know she had rang a soft chime, and the room’s lights automatically brightened themselves to a soft shimmer, enough to let her make her way to the door. She remembered she was naked about two seconds before opening it, and hunted in the closet to find— yes! —a fluffy white bathrobe that enveloped her in sandalwood-scented luxury.

She found Liam standing on the other side of the door when she opened it. He was holding a set of hangers, and bowed slightly as he handed them over. “I took the liberty,” he said. “Patrick thought you might need something, considering how damaged your clothing was. He didn’t think you had the energy to go shopping.”

Liam had also freshened up; the jeans and checked shirt he wore weren’t his usual dapper style, but he still looked starched, somehow. She took the clothes and smiled back at him. “Thanks, Liam. Um . . . I didn’t have time to ask, but . . . are the dogs okay . . . ?” Because one thing the two of them shared was a love of dogs. His were the various hounds that lived at the McCallister estate; hers was a bulldog that had gotten caught up in the recent chaos. And she’d missed him badly.

“I made sure we recovered them outside of Pharmadene, including Mr. French,” he said. “I had the opportunity to board them before we came for you. I’m afraid anything we left in the estate is probably going to be seized, at best, and I was afraid to leave the dogs to their tender mercies.”

It hurt her to think of her adorable bulldog, Mr. French, in some boarding cage, but she couldn’t do anything for him just now—and besides, knowing Liam, it would be the cushiest pet spa of all, and Mr. French wouldn’t want for a thing. Right now, she needed her dog’s unquestioning love more than he needed hers.

Her world had narrowed down into the single goal of kill or be killed, and her sweet pet didn’t have any place in that. And she wasn’t cruel enough to pretend he did.

Even if she wanted to.

“May I ask you something?” he said, and she blinked and focused back on Liam. “Your . . . new biological status. How dangerous are you, Bryn? Really?”

“Not dangerous to you or Patrick,” she said. “Maybe a little, to my sister, because she’s already got the nanites. These upgrades can’t infect regular people, only those brought back with Returné.”

His smile didn’t waver as he said, “You wouldn’t be lying to me about that, would you?”

“I wouldn’t, Liam.”

“I’d fully understand if you felt the need,” he said. “But it would be a rather massive mistake to give in to the temptation.”

She nodded, just a little, and didn’t break eye contact. “You’d kill to protect him,” she said. “I know that.”

“Specifically, I would kill you to protect him,” Liam said. “If you posed a clear and present danger. But I will take your word for it that you don’t.” The unspoken part of that was for now , and Bryn clearly understood it, and acknowledged it. “Dinner is being served. I thought you might be hungry.”

She was, she realized. Very. Which was upsetting and worrisome. Bryn clutched the clothes to her chest, closed the door and dressed very quickly; it all fit, more or less, and as she came out of the room she saw her sister waiting in the hallway.

Annie looked pale and drawn, and when she saw Bryn, her eyes filled with tears. She came over, and they hugged silently for a long, long moment. “I was so worried about you,” Annie whispered. “God, Bryn. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Bryn said, and patted Annie’s back. “Not like we haven’t been through worse, right?”

“That is way too right to be funny anymore. Oh God, I guess we’re going to have to call the fam pretty soon and lie to them, aren’t we? Just so they don’t freak out and do something stupid like call the cops and file missing persons on us.”

That was an excellent point, and Bryn was a little startled that she hadn’t thought of it. “God, you’re right. We had to ditch the cell phones, after all. They might think we’ve been—”

“Abducted,” Annie said, and burst into strange, borderline-hysterical laughter. “Funny, isn’t it?”

The laughter was infectious, and Bryn felt it bubbling its way up out of her too—not humor, exactly, but a black kind of amusement liberally mixed with despair. She clung to Annie, and Annie held on to her, and they laughed it out until they finally got enough breath to separate.

Annie wiped her eyes and said, “I guess we really should eat something, right?”

“I hope they have steak,” Bryn said. “I really hope they have steak.”

In fact, they did. Evidently, Riley and Pansy had put their heads together, and dinner was mostly available self-serve in pots and pans . . . but there were steaks, big ones, and a small stack of them were left almost raw. When Bryn took a plate, Riley—who looked rested and fresh, too—pointed her toward the meat. “Specially made,” she said. “I think you’ll find it’s what you need. It helped me a lot.”

“You already ate?”

“Had to,” Riley said. That was a short answer, but it conveyed a lot, especially when she raised her eyebrows just a bit. “Pansy was kind enough to fix something.”

That must have been quite the culinary conversation, Bryn thought. “Is Manny awake?”

“Oh, yes,” Liam said, where he was spooning broccoli onto his plate beside a chicken breast. “Mr. Glickman woke very loudly. He is now barricaded in his room and says he will not come out until you and Riley vacate the premises and he has a chance to decontaminate the rooms.”

“He’ll come around,” Pansy said. “It was just the shock. He’ll be monitoring to make sure everything stays chill. If it does, he’ll come out in a few days. You’ll see.”

“We don’t have days,” Patrick said. He and Joe already had plates and were seated at the table, and Joe was halfway through what looked like some kind of stew. Bryn plated her steak and carried it over to sit next to them. “We have a day, maybe, but the people behind the Fountain Group’s research, whoever they are, however they intend to use all this sick technology. . . they clearly have more money than Gates. They’ll find us, and as good as this place is, it has vulnerabilities—principally, it’s a bunker, which means limited ways in and out. They can, and will, find a way to dig us out, and we’ll have a hard time slipping by them once they settle in. So here’s my thought: we let them lay siege, but some of us go on now and take the fight directly to their doorstep. We can’t win this by fighting a defensive war.”